Introduction
Evan Pilcher drives the New World's frozen foods delivery truck. He's got a set of glam photos at a modelling agency, but the phone dosn't ring...
Sounds boring, my usually compassionate Nest says, Have you ever done Shakespeare?
No says Evan But I did act way back in high school.
Our friend Tania Guenter is filling in time too, and Nest has been looking for people to act in a Shakespeare selection he's dreamed of doing.
Of course I'll do the photos for your poster I tell him. I've always admired people who do classy black and white... maybe my photo essay will be amongst them.
Nest keeps revisiting Shakespeare, since he spotted A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Slam/Bang/ Wow format of a Classic Comic when he was twelve. Enough to do a solo show (of 30 exerpts) he called Of Comfort and Despair and act with others in several of the full length plays. Me? My high school introduction, with none of it spoken, was hard to understand, dreary and frustrating but the minute I see Shakespeare acted, when I moved up to Wellington, I'm mesmerised too.
In these photos, I dart in and out of Nest (the man with the beard) Evan and Tania rehearsing . Its too difficult to decode what they're saying, and instead I relaxedly enjoy their performance as a deaf person's ballet of non-verbal visual language. I'm pretty delighted at Nest's unhesitating recall of the sentences they said two years ago in these photos he picked as the ones he liked most. Enjoy.
O wonderful when devils tell the truth!
Lady Anne is not terrifically thrilled to be told Richard has killed her two main men. I know this expression extremely well - Mother would throw open her front door and tell me I was awfully late getting home. None of this I'm pleased to see you son, and I'd squirm, a very universal man emotion...
If I thought that, tell thee, homicide, these nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks
Lady Anne's coiled cobra claws tell me she will get herself out of Gloucester's grip, and when she does, she will hurt him badly, vengefully...
O never shall sun that morrow see.
Lady Macbeth is relaxed and confident. Becoming queen is the way to go, and if that flaming letter leaves a gigantic scorch mark in the middle of St. Cuthbert's matai flooring, thats okay too
I did love you once.
Stunned disappointment is an old emotion. Ophelia's short hair, build is very Judy Garland talking in A Star Is Born
If thou dost marry I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry.
Hamlet and Ophelia do angry recriminations... Nest comments on how difficult this bit is for Evan.
Being a modern woman, Tania is biting and kicking and scratching and screaming, rather than tranquilly letting Evan rape her
Leave wringing of your hand, peace, sit you down
Hamlet starts telling the Queen how outraged he is at her marriage to his uncle. In idealistic young man mode he trashes the validity of her letting grief fuel lust after his Dad's death.
Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother.
Hamlet explains to Mother what a bad girl she is re-marrying.I love the way Tania gets that My wee baby boy is disappointed with me reaction. Is this the emotion a real mother likes least having bounced back at her? She's got to wedge herself upright. She's not quite ready to slap his face...
O Hamlet, speak no more ...
Ophelia understands very well that Hamlet's love has gone, but she still has to say it.
At Photospace I showed this photo upside down. Ophelia is taking a big big risk talking to The Prince of Denmark like this. Upside down he's a cocoon shape lunging towards her, over her to suffocate or choke her.
O Hamlet speak no more, thou turns my eyes into my very soul ...
Ophelia shields her face from Hamlet's accusing tirade, a tender gesture in which she brushes his shoulder accidentally. For the performance, we borrowed towel rail sized candles from the church, lost the fifties chair... with a wintry full moon shining in through the camellia (and heaters that weren't up to it) it was I thought very 14th century.
... eyes into my very soul.
The back of Ophelia's boot is the first personal detail I notice of her dark dis-engagement from Hamlet. The flare of the candle - thats where the lusty fires of love still scorch between her thighs.
I would be friends with you, and have your love ...
As Shylock, my Nest has ricocheted into his eighties. He looks frail but defiant. Only his amusement at life's absurdities keeps him ahead of his rabid christian persecutors.
I like that!
How long within this wood intend you stay?
Oberon is playful, hard to get, shy, amorous, beguiled in that forest with Titania. It's near the Blenheim of his childhood, where sprites dance, blur modern 400th of a second film.
Romeo - O Wilt Thou Leave Me So Unsatisfied?
Can fabric summarise the incompatibilities of feuding families? The black blunt glamour of Juliet's gown, Romeo's shirt's slidey snakeskin, and that little, little reaching out through the distrust barriers...